February 2012

February 27, 2012

In today's political environment there seems to be two sides: 1) those who think the government can and should be in charge of solving our problems, and 2) those who think the government is evil and should be restrained. These are oversimplifications, to be sure, but I believe they at least come close to making a little sense of where people stand.

Each of these viewpoints can easily run to extremes. Those of the first viewpoint can readily get caught up in theories of government that, in the past, have led to totalitarian states, oppression, and state-sponsored genocide. Those of the second viewpoint tend to take the form of "founding father worship," a condition whereby we deify the men who gave us America's founding documents as though they were infallible.

It is with this second viewpoint I wish to take momentary umbrage. For, although I believe America's founding to be a spectacularly singular event in the history of freedom, I do believe the founders were fallible, fallen human beings like the rest of us.

I also believe they made at least one huge error.

Lemmesplain.

Yesterday evening I was out with my family. Somehow, the topic of the game of Monopoly came up. Recently, my two youngest children, six and eight years old, have been completely enamored with this game. And boy, are they good at it! In one knock-down-drag-out-winner-take-all match, my six year old son cleaned my clock and left me destitute, all the while subsidizing his sister, who was not in much better shape than myself. I marvelled at their mathematical skills, their grasping of the concept of mortgages, and the agility with which they would quickly become real-estate tycoons. In yesterday's discussion, it came up that in a game between just the two of them things had progressed so far that they actually broke the bank.

"What do you mean?" I asked, smelling a rat.

"We made sooooo much money the bank ran out," answered the six-year-old with pride.

"Yeah, so we made more," chimed the eight-year-old with a freckled grin.

"You did what?" I asked.

"We made more money."

"Just like that?"

"Yup. It was easy, actually."

Now I knew I was onto something, so I pressed further, asking, "Who gave you the authority to do it?"

They both shrugged their shoulders and answered, "We did."

"And why did you think it was ok to do?" I asked, going for the jugular.

"Because we were in charge of the game, silly!"

Out of the mouth of babes! You see, what my two cherubs had done was nothing more than the obvious - nothing more than governments have been prone to do any time and every time they find themselves in a similar jam, and, "being in charge of the game," who's to stop them?

The founding fathers put into documentary form many principles from the greatest minds of statehood from throughout history. They sought to chain the monster of government and make it subservient to the dictate of the people. Balances of powers, states' rights, a Bill of Rights, and the rule of law were enshrined in founding documents that began a great experiment in freedom unmatched in world history. However, they overlooked at least one enormous point: whoever controls the money controls the game. By assigning exclusive control of the money supply to the government alone, they dangled a carrot of irresistable size in front of the noses of power mongers and opportunists. It was only a matter of time before such a towering source of power would be abused. Without competition, due oversight, or powers of restraint provided to the people, the exclusive authority to control the money supply could eventually be the Achilles heel of the entire government.

Which brings us to today. Both sides of the political divide (the two viewpoints stated above) have found that once in office, the magic machine of money creation is easily at hand to enact their policies (no matter what their campaign rhetoric had been). The benefit is that the populace does not have to be asked, and no new taxes need be imposed. One political side promises more big government as the answer, and funds it with trillions of dollars created out of thin air. The other side yells and screams about the socialism of such programs, and then, once in office, reaches for the same easy-money spigot. The bottom line is this: when something as powerful as controlling the money supply is governed only by the false notion of self-restraint, there will be no restraint.

"What happened next?" I asked my young Federal Reserve Chairmen.

"We made more, why?"

"Oh, just wondering," I said.

"But Dad," interrupted the eight-year-old, sharp enough to see where I was heading, "It didn't cause prices to go up!"

I was so proud of her, for she remembered the lesson of inflation I had tried to teach them a couple years ago. But she was also missing another aspect of the game.

"That's because the rents are fixed," I answered. "They are printed on each card and cannot change. If they weren't fixed, they would go up every time you expand the money supply." (Don't even get me started on the evils of price-fixing! That's another monster altogether!)

"I know, I know, Dad," she said with a coy smile, "But it's just a game!"

She was right, of course, and Dad didn't feel like infringing any further upon childhood joy with real life economics. But when it comes to real life, it is not just a game.

So what could the founders have done differently?

The concept is called "privatized money," which involves allowing the people themselves to come up with, distribute, and regulate their own money supply based upon open competition. There would be several at a time, all vying for our usage based upon merit alone. No authoritative government would be handing us one single choice and forcing us to accept it as "legal tender," all the while affecting its value with its hands on the levers behind the curtain. Privatization would be like choosing amongst Visa, MasterCard, and American Express based upon who we thought had the most stable, reliable, well-known, and dependable money. Perhaps each would offer a backing and redemption in gold. It is not such a crazy idea. Deregulation and free markets have vastly improved such things as airlines, telephones, and even postal service (Federal Express, Airborne, and others have carved a nice niche in the space around the government's strange monopoly on mail). Privatized money has been done many times in spotty moments throughout history, at points where governments hadn't yet confiscated control. It worked. Usually it went from chaos to consolidation among a handful of worthy competitors, just like most industries.

We don't need to debate the details, however, because it's unlikely to ever happen. Those in charge of the game will never give it up. Instead, they've got to work to keep us playing along.

February 23, 2012

My first view of it came from at least a mile away, across fields and woods and colored by a setting sun. The spires of the Biltmore mansion stood proudly in a group, sticking up above the pines and pointing into the sky. Even from such a distance, it looked enormous.

I had tried once before to come here and tour this place, but instead a flu had me halucinating in a nearby hotel room bed. I fought off dragons and flew through black ink skies until our schedule forced us to move on - me in the passenger seat, curled into the fetal position. We left without even getting a glimpse. Now, four years hence, the glimpse alone was worth the trip.

The next day we gathered with dear friends and took the official tour. My favorite was the library, of course. Being a sucker for architecture and the creative process in general, I was taken in by George Vanderbilt's vision, his design, the attention to detail, and, obviously, the sheer size of the building. My mind went to thoughts of infrastructure and logistics, the complication of the build, and the cost. 125,000 acres, I thought! What an estate.

Seeing the servants' quarters, noting the scale of the kitchens and "working rooms," it occurred to me how many people must work to allow a few to be at leisure. What had Vanderbilt himself done, after all, to earn all of this? He was a third generation millionaire (billionaire in today's inflated dollar terms) who spent his inheritance on this dream home while his older brother carried on the family work. But then, who was I to judge? And who could begrudge someone using his means in a way he saw fit, that didn't hurt anyone, and that brought a lot of activitiy to a lot of people. Besides, there was also talk of his private contributions to charity.

That's when I thought of it.

One part of the audio tour mentioned that Vanderbilt had 40 full-time staff to run the place in his day. Yet, everywhere we went on the property, from the inn to the winery, from the guard shack to the house proper, we were met and greeted and handled by friendly, smiling people. There are way more than 40 people working here now. One man's dream from over a century ago has provided not only enjoyment, but employment for countless others down through the years.

Dreams, you see, have ramifications. Beauty has a special quality that, when shared, is free and contagious. It can be appreciated by everybody. But beyond the sharing of a work of art, such as the Biltmore mansion, dreams can be productive in employing others and providing a livelihood, too.

Dream big. Dream in a God-honoring way. Dream of things you can do with your talents and abilities to bring joy, share beauty, and impact others in a positive way. Do no harm. Seek to do good. For you can never know for sure how far your dream will reach or last, and how many it will benefit along the way. Who knows, someone may just be writing about your dream 100 years from now!

February 22, 2012

We never met our neighbors on one side. By the time we bought our home the husband had already moved out. We saw the children once in a while, roughly the same age as our own, but that was about it. Otherwise, the house usually looked vacant.

Then one day I heard some racket and looked over to see a work crew dismantling the extensive wooden playset in the back yard. Piece by piece, it was being unceremonially hurled into the back of a rusty pickup truck. Soon, all that remained was a sad patch of woodchips where a happy playground had once been.

It was all a metaphor for the pain of broken relationships. My seminary professor, Dr. Doug Bookman, once made a profound statement about the deepest pain in human experience being relational pain. Contemplating this, I agreed with him. Nothing hurts more than a broken bond with another person. Hurt feelings are the strongest feelings of hurt we can experience. In particular, when a family breaks apart it is serious business. Pain flings itself in every direction and misses no one with its touch of lasting destruction.

Watching those workmen that day, I thought back over my life and the empty patches of woodchips in certain backyards of my memory. I have been fortunate, as there are not too many of them, but the ones I do have are strong testimony to the truth of Bookman's comment.

Keep the playset in your backyard in good working order. Maintain it daily with love and affection. Be intentionally loving and serving in the lives of the people God has brought into your life. Guard your relationships with constant vigilance. It's much easier to maintain good relationships and mend frazzled ones than to let them be carried away in a rusty truck. Once that happens, all that is left is a lonely patch of woodchips quietly suggesting what could have been.

February 16, 2012

How we are doing financially has a lot to do with how we think, or the construct we've built up in our minds to interpret all things dealing with money. It's similar to a World View, which is a term that seeks to describe the lens through which one sees and experiences the world. In this short clip, I introduce the concept of a Money View.

February 09, 2012

In the early 1800s a boy named Frederic Tudor was on a trip to Havana, Cuba and had a thought. As he stood in the sweltering sun he wondered if people there would be interested in a cold drink. This little insight stuck with Tudor and he would grow up to pioneer the shipping of New England ice on wooden ships to places as far away as Calcutta, India.

This was not as difficult as it may at first seem. Ice, when packed together in large quantity and kept out of the sun, actually melts very slowly. When covered with sawdust it can last even longer. In large enough tonnage, according to author William Bernstein, Tudor discovered that as much as two thirds of his original cargo could arrive in India still frozen. Innovations were even made to this process, such as the shipping of uniform blocks of ice. These were easier to stack and arrange as ballast in a ship's hull.

Along several of these shipping routes, perishable fruits were packed on the ice and transported where they could be eaten "out of season:" apples taken south and bananas taken north, for instance. However, this idea was not really utilized much, and for some reason Tudor would continue to consider the shipping of ice his main business throughout his life. The much larger business of refrigerated shipping, technically "invented" by Tudor, would be developed upon by others. This huge breakthrough was literally right under Tudor's nose the whole time. He hadn't exactly missed it, he simply didn't capitalize on it. Instead, he began speculating on coffee futures and other diversions.

This story makes one think about the Japanese VCR manufacturers fighting over tape formats while the real money was being made on movies, or IBM missing the trend to PC's even though they were the world's leader in computers at the time. Or even simpler; Mark Twain squandering his fortune multiple times upon get-rich-quick inventions and investments when he could literally create wealth with his pen.

What explains the occurrence of huge ideas being missed because those involved were occupied with the smaller ones that lead up to it?

Why do so many who begin to succeed get distracted and allow their focus to be dissipated on lesser pursuits?

Why is good such a distraction from great?

And more important still: what big breakthrough is lurking just outside your current scope of operations?

What have you implemented or pioneered that is good but not great? Or is a step toward something bigger?

What could you be missing?

These are the kinds of questions that should send chills up any true leader's spine, because, although this may sound cold - anything less is merely hauling ice!

February 06, 2012

I am excited to introduce the following article contributed exclusively to readers of this blog by Jason Monaghan from the University of Notre Dame Executive Online Education program. For a look at the ad in question, click here.

Every year when I watch the Super Bowl, it amazes me how creative organizations can be in delivering their message. One of the best ads this year (in my humble opinion) is the VW Ad featuring a dog who yearns to experience the new VW Bug. The level of creativity is startling – especially given the success of their ad from last year – and it led me to think about how an effective leadership team must be just as creative on a daily basis.

Here are a few takeaways I thought of from one of 2012’s top Super Bowl commercial contenders:

Every “old dog” has the chance to learn new tricks. Truly effective leaders are constantly courting change. What changes they can't find, they invent, and they stick to their vision no matter what. As soon as you resist change because it would involve giving up “what you know,” you are stifling the chance for development.

Times change – be ready. Be prepared to adjust to opportunities as they emerge. Whether that means staying in shape physically or emotionally, or even pursuing extra education – like a leadership certification or an advanced degree – being in prime shape is critical. Who do you want to be, the overweight dog that can't get through the door once opportunity comes knocking, or the one who is lean and mean, ready to chase that new opportunity?

Take a risk. Effective leadership means constantly striving and reaching for new angles. VW had arguably the best Super Bowl ad in 2011 – and they built upon that legacy. The team for this year also knew the smart thing was not doing the “same old, same old.” Instead, they are aiming for new heights by creating a new memorable commercial experience while leveraging their success from last year.

Watch carefully and apply. Be creative in your approach and watch what resonates with your team, clients and customers. VW recognizes the trend in reality television has a few strong threads that resonate with the American audience, and one of them is the life transformation from shows like NBC’s The Biggest Loser. They built this into the new direction for this year’s ad while tying into their former success at the end – kind of like getting two ads for one. Don't be afraid to try a new tactic if you think it will appeal to your audience or team. Your leadership and willingness to try could create an entirely new trend, rather than responding to those already in the marketplace.

The “force” is a creative, visionary skill, not a coercive tool. The last scene where the little Darth Vader reacts to criticism is definitely not the way to respond to dissention. Don't use the “force” to force people to agree. Surround yourself with those who share your passion and your vision and let their ideas and opinions be the force that drives you. Leaders can create an empire by fostering an environment that readily accepts change, new ideas and trust.

Even with the fun and excitement of the Super Bowl this weekend, there are serious leadership lessons to be learned. Excellence in leadership means that change is part of the daily pursuit of organizations who are striving to stay relevant. VW accomplishes this by taking its own twist on the “force” of business.

This guest post was provided by Jason Monaghan with University of Notre Dame Executive Online Education. Jason works with the faculty and staff at Notre Dame Online to develop skill sets for the leaders of tomorrow in Negotiations, Leadership and Management and Business Administration.